72

Technique
  

After Effects and

Photoshop CS3 or later
Animate
text in After
Effects
James Wignall
shows you how to take
your text’s appeal to the
next level
Animated text is everywhere, from commercials on
television, film title sequences and corporate presentations to
adverts on the London Underground. In this tutorial I’ll show you
how to take text that’s been lovingly laid out in Photoshop and
import it into After Effects for animating. The beauty is that you can
apply the techniques in this tutorial to pretty much any project:
maybe your boss has asked you to quickly spruce up the annual
reports or you’d just like to add an extra level to your short film’s
credit sequence. You can link animated pieces of text by using
3D cameras to go from one word to the next, creating a nice,
flowing animation.
One of the great things about this technique is that if you
need to alter your text (and, let’s face it, clients love to change their
minds), you can do this quickly and easily without affecting your 01 Create a
animation. You’ll also learn how to create the much-used (and new file in Photoshop
abused) macro photography effect. By adding textures and quick (Ctrl/Cmd+N). There’s
lighting, you can make your type look as if it’s being physically no correct canvas size,
printed. The only limits are your imagination! but I decide to make
mine 1024x576. Make
a new text layer using
the Text tool (T) and
write whatever springs
to mind. In this case
I’ve used my superhero
name, Mutanthands.

James Wignall
James works as a
Time needed
1 hour
Skills
Importing text
02 After saving
director and from Photoshop your PSD file, import it
animator in London. Animating text in into After Effects (Ctrl/
Under his After Effects Cmd+I), selecting
Mutanthands guise, Applying Import As: Composition
his clients have techniques to Cropped Layers. Now
included MTV, VH1, your own
Nickelodeon, Sony projects
for the clever part: click
and Nike. He also on your text layer and
helps to run an select Make Text
animation and Editable
design screening (Layer>Convert to
night in London Editable Text). Now
called See No
Evil. www.mutant
your text will be
hands.com fully editable within
After Effects.

Computer Arts September 2009 www.computerarts.co.uk

ART166.tut_ae 72 6/8/09 18:27:15

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04 In the next few steps I’m going to 05 Select every other letter
create a simple transition in which the letters and open the Position panel (P). Go
03 Tight deadline? This is where Presets come in handy. slide in from the top and bottom. Firstly, mask to 14 frames down the timeline
Navigate to the Effects and Presets menu, and down to just one letter of your layer (Shift+Ctrl/ and insert a key frame (click on the
Presets>Text folder. If something takes your fancy, simply drag it Cmd+N) and then duplicate the layer (Ctrl/ stopwatch icon). Go back to the
onto your text layer. These often look pretty tacky, so it’s normally Cmd+D) moving the mask onto the next start of the timeline and move all
best to animate the text yourself. sequential letter each time. the letters down by about 70px.

07 Create a
new solid (Ctrl/
Cmd+Y) the same
size as your comp.
Add a mask
(Shift+Ctrl/Cmd+N)
that’s the rough
outline of your text.
Duplicate (Ctrl/
Cmd+D) the solid so
there’s one for each
letter. Select the
letter layers and
choose Alpha Matte
06 Next, select all of the key frames and click from the TrkMat
Animation>Keyframe Assistant>Easy Ease In. Select the drop-down menu.
remaining letters and repeat the previous steps, except this time
move the layers 70px upwards. Now select all of the layers and
stagger them by roughly one frame.

Smoothing the camera tracks

Having problems getting smooth movement with the After Effects camera?
Try creating a Null Object (Layer>New>Null Object) and parenting the camera to it.
You can now use this to animate the camera’s positional movements and animate the
rotational movements separately on the camera layer. Separating the key frames
helps in sorting out those niggles associated with After Effects’ camera.

10 You can apply this technique to almost any project

09 Select your camera and and, being pre-comped, it enables you to change the text without
08 You’ve just animated your text. position it using the Transform options affecting other animation work. Spice up your own projects by
Now let’s apply it to a quick scene to jazz (or press C to move the camera around in adding textures or using lighting and shadow effects. Play
it up a little. Create a new composition the preview window.) Open the Camera around and see where you can take it.
(Ctrl/Cmd+N) about 1024x576 in size Options tab and turn on Depth of Field.
and drag in your animated text comp. By playing with the Focal Length and
Tick the 3D Layer box on your text layer Aperture, you can give your animation a
and add a camera (Layer>New>Camera). nice macro look.

www.computerarts.co.uk Computer Arts September 2009

ART166.tut_ae 73 6/8/09 18:27:18